


Admit Defeat

by Banana_ana



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anger, Angst, Denial of Feelings, Drama, Dreams, Fights, Flashbacks, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Self Confidence Issues, Spies & Secret Agents, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:07:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24172573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Banana_ana/pseuds/Banana_ana
Summary: After the events of Avengers: Endgame, Bucky is trying to get his life back into some kind of sense.He had been left by the only person who had understood and known him. He had no idea why. But he had to move on, Steve clearly had.But now he has to work with the epitome of snark and annoyance and things just keep going wrong for them.What is actually happening and who is causing all of these problems?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson
Comments: 17
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone. So I admit I am pretty scared to post this - its my first MCU fic and the universe is so huge I don't want to upset anyone!
> 
> It is an idea that has been floating around in my head since December but I have finally managed to make it come together. 
> 
> Anyone who has read any of my stuff before knows a few things about me but if you're new here i'll get you up to speed:
> 
> I try to post weekly, but this can be erratic (sorry!). Please subscribe to make sure you don't miss anything
> 
> I love feedback and any constructive criticism is awesome. Or even if its just to say hi thats awesome! Its a cliche but if I know people like it I will write faster
> 
> Also for some reason I love angst, twists and turns so I apologise now. 
> 
> Anyway! Please enjoy this and hopefully i'll get another chapter up soon : )

He woke with a start. The darkness that surrounded him that he normally considered a friend, now tense with silence and loneliness.

Breathing hard he drags a hand through his dark hair. Still not used to the current style, and almost missing his shoulder length locks, he sighs as he tries to calm himself from what had tormented his dreams.

It had been two months. Two months since he had last seen him. Sitting on that bench next to the water – aged, grey and all too happy to be the Steve he knew.

And every night of those two months he had woken up in exactly the same way. Startled from slumber with memories turned into dreams that wanted to taunt the only time he was able to escape the monotone dreariness of his life now.

He hadn’t been allowed back to Wakanda. No matter how much the Crown had tried – well Shuri really. She had badgered T’Challa until he relented and allowed her to try and petition for him to return to his solitary hut and recover from the Snap. Unfortunately, Thaddeus Ross had decided in his wisdom that James Buchanan Barnes (or The Winter Soldier as he had decided to call him, still not wanting to refer to him as an actual person) had to stay in the United States and answer to his crimes.

It had all backfired pretty quickly when the remaining Avengers had rallied around him and fought – figuratively speaking – to keep him free.

Throwing his head back on to his pillow he looks up at the ceiling, his eyes now used to the lack of light, and he traces the outline of the recessed spots in the roof. He tries to conjure up a vision of what he had been dreaming, but like all the times before there was nothing there. Even when he thought he had a thread of something tangible, when he tried to pull on it, it would just dissipate into mist as if it hadn’t even been there to begin with.

The illusion of getting back to sleep had completely left the building. Bucky knew there was no way he was going to get any more rest tonight, and he turns over on his too soft bed to check the time on his watch sitting at the side of the bed.

Half four. Figures it was nowhere near sunrise yet. Growling at his own body’s inability to let him rest and silently cursing at the serum that coursed through his veins that let his nervous system be happy with barely four hours sleep, he throws his covers off of him and walks loudly through to the shower room attached to his room.

The pounding of the burning water on his back just let him feel something. He could imagine what Steve would say if he had been there.

_“What are you doin’ that for, Buck? You’re gonna get hurt, it’s too hot!”_

“Yeah, well you fucked off didn’t ya, punk, so I can do whatever the hell I wanna do,” Bucky mutters to himself. He turns in the flow of the water and leans forward so that it ran over his head and down his face as he looked at the tile under his feet. He could only imagine what would happen if people knew he was now arguing with himself.

But he still couldn’t believe the idiot left him. He knew he was going to do something stupid even before he got into the stupid time machine and never came back. But leave him like that? Even Bucky thought that was a cruel and unusual punishment. And he should know. Decades as the Winter Soldier, he had tried nearly everything and had had a lot done on him too. But this was by far the worst. Not a physical torture, but a mental one.

Why wasn’t he good enough?

Anger flows through him like it had been doing every morning. He was starting to thrive on it. He knew if he wasn’t angry, he would be numb, and anything was better than that again.

Shutting the faucet off, he grabs a towel and rubs at his head roughly and then down his body, before throwing it on to the chair in the corner of his room and pulling his outfit for the day out of his closet. Never one for wanting to actively do exercise if he didn’t need to, he was going to get himself presentable and ready for the rest of the day.

Today was the day. He had been waiting for this. He was finally going to get to do something that would change his routine.

Maybe this will let him sleep again.

Of course he had to deal with Bird man for the foreseeable. But Bucky was man enough to deal with a feathered dick with a shield. God he had managed Steve hadn’t he?

And there was that pang in his chest again.

“Fuck this,” he says out loud. He pulls on his black jeans, black tee, grabs his black leather jacket and makes sure he has his gloves in his pocket.

He doesn’t want to scare the locals with his arm. He just wants to do…fuck he doesn’t even know what he wants anymore.

He runs his hands through his hair one last time, making sure that it would at least dry in the right place, and shrugs as he takes one last look in the mirror.

He sees someone trying. Trying to be human? Trying to be whole? Trying not to be heartbroken?

He doesn’t know what he’s trying to be, but he’s going to keep doing it til it happens.

Probably til the end of the line.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> Just want to say thank you to everyone who has kudosed and subscribed. It means so much! 
> 
> As I said, it makes me write faster so here you go :)

Bucky takes a long sip from his Starbucks to go cup. The scrawling hand writing on the side proclaiming it a drink for ‘Jim’, or, if you squinted, possibly just ‘him’. Penmanship in the twenty first century clearly not something that was taught universally anymore.

He had been sitting on an out of the way bench at the Lincoln Memorial for at least two hours now. He had gotten himself coffee to stay alert, but that was also something that was not really having any effect on him anymore. Alcohol was not really a problem for him, but dammit he missed the good ol’ caffeine hit a black cup of coffee used to give him.

He had just been sitting and watching the people go by in the world around him. Groups learning how to live with each other again once everyone was brought back. Nearby was the memorial wall that had been erected when they were all gone, the names of everyone who had gone missing in the continental US after the snap. Instead of grief which he imagined everyone had been suffering when they visited before, is now surrounded with people trying to find their own names and selfies being taken – a current trend of the youth of today was posting their photo on social media to prove some sort of medal or trophy.

People ignored him as they walked by. It was easy for him to slip back into that stillness; the sniper pose that he used to hold for so long. He has a faint memory niggle at the back of his mind of him lying in wait for at least twelve hours, not moving an inch to even scratch his nose as his target had been running late from whatever every day activity he had been up to. Snow flurrying around him, ice forming on the barrel of his rifle, but he just lay there. His mission.

He shudders, trying to stop the memory from overtaking him the way it wanted to. He did that sometimes, remembering the things he was made to do when he was asleep. That’s what his therapist had told him. If he was awake he wouldn’t have chosen to do all these atrocities. But we are suggestible and rarely have control over our own thoughts when we are asleep. He found it easier to cope with things and come to terms with it when he thought of it like that. Steve said….

Well it didn’t fucking matter what Steve said.

“Didn’t keep ya waiting did I Barnes?”

The handsome man walked up the steps towards him, directly towards where Bucky had been waiting for him. He had a wide shit eating grin plastered on his face which made him even more attractive, the gap in his teeth endearing. Bucky rolled his eyes. He was going to have to break this one in quickly.

“Wilson,” he said shortly in greeting. He drained his cup and then – without looking - threw it over his left shoulder towards the trash can that was placed next to the bench he had been sitting on. He didn’t even have to glance to know that it was sunk just as he expected. Sam even looked a little impressed at the obvious show of skill that had taken place with very little obvious effort.

Sam Wilson was dressed much more appropriately for the weather. There was not a cloud in the sky, even at this early hour, and the temperature was clearly going to rise to try and break more records that it had already done. Since the reversal of the Snap there had been an uncharacteristic warmth to the country, and the lack of rain was starting to take its toll on some of the more rural states.

He was wearing smart blue jeans and a bright red polo shirt. The sleeves of his shirt hugged the muscles on his arms like he had been taking fashion and sizing advice from their mutual friend. It also seemed to be very literal considering Sam’s new call sign. Bucky took a quick check of his all black ensemble, even down to his black tac boots and he mentally shrugs at how uncomfortable he was probably going to feel later.

“So, we doing this thing or what?” Sam asks, no preamble as they start to walk towards where Bucky assumed his car was waiting for them.

Neither of them had liked each other when they had first met. Sam was still smarting from having one of his wings torn off of his suit and being beaten up, whereas Bucky was experiencing some newly resurfaced jealousy that Steve had fund someone to almost replace him as his best friend. Since having fought the Titan together they had each formed a mutual respect for the other but is was far from brothers in arms.

“Doing what, Wilson?” Bucky replies. “I’m in the dark about this thing. And I don’t like being in the dark,” he adds, a dangerous edge to his voice and he could sense Sam shudder next to him when he heard it. Internally he chuckles. Yes, alright, there was still jealousy there and he likes to tease him when he can. It was also a good way of keeping people at arm’s length. It’s going to take a lot to make him trust someone again.

“You know as much as I do,” Sam says finally. “We both got a message to meet at this place – _together_ ,” Bucky rolls his eyes for Sam to see this time. That meant that Sam knew that he was considering blowing him off and going to this thing alone. “And we’ll find out more then,” he adds as they get to his Corvette, a bright cherry red muscle car and as conspicuous as you could get without having a bullhorn on the top shrieking every time you pressed the brake.

“Are you fuckin kidding me?” Bucky looks at Sam as they get to the car. “I’m not getting in that,” he adds and crosses his arms over his chest petulantly.

Sam glares at him and presses the key fob before going around the hood of the car to the driver’s side. A loud beep lets them both know the car is open and he gets in pointedly looking at his companion as he does so.

Bucky stands outside the passenger side door. He can out wait him. It’s not beyond him to do this. He once left Steve waiting for him in Europe because he was insisting on them using a vespa to get from one place to another. And that was during the war.

Wilson rolls the window down and leans over the centre console to look through the window. “Barnes, you don’t know this about me, but I am a stubborn ass when I wanna be so get in the freaking car!”

Bucky looks at him, unimpressed and continues to wait, only raising an eyebrow in response.

“Look, you can hate on my car all you want, but get in her before I leave without you!”

Bucky looks at him again and gives a wave of his hand as if he is expecting him to drive off, but he’s not getting in.

There’s a deadlock between them. Neither wanting to budge until Sam says the one thing that makes him get in.

“They only have my car on their files, if we don’t use this we don’t get in.”

Bucky stills as he takes in what Sam said. He didn’t want to give in, but he really wanted to know what this was all about. His interest was piqued, and he now needed to either fight if it was a trap or listen if it wasn’t.

Sighing he decides to let him have this one and he pulls hard on the door handle until it opens for him. He hears Sam almost squeak as he does it with slightly more force that was necessary, and he slams the door loudly.

He sits in the passenger seat and stares straight ahead. When the car doesn’t move he looks to his left. “We goin’ or what?”

“That was unnecessary, man,” Sam says as he shifts the car into drive and pulls off.

Immediately they hit traffic and the car is in silence until one of them says something.

“I take it you actually checked this out right?” Bucky asks him. He doesn’t need to. He knows two things that Sam probably doesn’t.

The first is as soon as the message came in for him he used all avenues available to him to make sure the message was legit and not a trick to get him back into Hydra’s hands. He wasn’t as sure as Ste – _no!_ – everyone else was that Hydra was as dead and buried as all that. He didn’t know who it was but as far as he could tell it was a permissible risk for him to take. Secondly, he had spied on Sam to make sure he had done the same.

“What do you take me for? I was on the run with one of the best spies in the world, you think I don’t check things out?” Sam is almost affronted that Bucky would even suggest that he wouldn’t take his own safety seriously.

“Yeah, Wilson, she was the spy, you were the muscle,” Bucky says, a smirk on his face as he watches the city streets fly by and slowly turn into a more suburban outlook.

“Hey! I was more than that! I was logistics, and surveillance…we all know who the muscle was in our trio!” he slaps Bucky on the shoulder as he says it and pulls his hand back almost immediately as his head whips round to look at him with the touch. “Sorry, man,” he mumbles.

Bucky doesn’t have chance to say anything else when Sam hits the brakes suddenly and the car immediately halts. He flies forward and manages to catch the dash before his head hits the glass. If it had that would have been Wilson out of money for a new window. He glares over to him and all he gets is; “well you should have put your safety belt on,” as he climbs out the car.

They had arrived at the meeting spot. A large empty factory type building right on the edge of the city. Industrial waste land lay all around them, and what looked like abandoned containers were strewn around, plenty of space to hide and ambush them.

Sam had parked in the middle of all of this and Bucky glared over at him. Not only had they not gotten there early enough for them to check out the area, he had also left them right out in the open without him being able to locate all the exits if needed.

“I hate you Wilson,” he mutters, just loud enough for Sam to hear. He sighs and pulls out the Glock 19 he had hidden in the waist of his pants. He makes sure it’s loaded – he knows it is, but it’s always better to check – and gets himself into a protective stance as he starts to one by one go around all of the containers to see what’s in them.

“There’s no need for that Sergeant Barnes,” comes the familiar deep voice from somewhere behind him.

Immediately he spins and shoots to where he heard the voice. The shot rings out around all of the building, echoing in the sparseness.

“I think you missed,” the voice says again. Bucky knew it had hit the side of the container the man was walking out of. He hadn’t aimed to kill. He knew the voice. It was a warning.

“I never miss,” is all he says to Nick Fury.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, so sorry for the delay in this. I've been sitting in writer's block purgatory for about a week and a half now 😔 
> 
> Thank you so much to the people who have kudosed and subscribed. 😊
> 
> Please let me know what you think so far

Bucky walked around his dimly lit living room, he throws his phone onto the sofa and runs his hands through his hair, thinking deeply.

His apartment had been carefully selected when he had arrived in D.C. He had followed Sam there – his final promise to ‘he who must not be named, thought of or remembered’ – but hadn’t told him exactly where he was living. It was a hangover from his old life; the constant need to be anonymous and difficult to find.

He didn’t have bright lights. One lamp on an old side table is all that lit the room he was currently pacing. The window large, overlooking no one and no nearby high buildings for snipers to find him. The only two rooms that had any proper lighting was the kitchen and the bathroom, both rooms also had no clear sight lines from the street or surrounding buildings, or in the case of the bathroom – no window at all.

He keeps to the shadows. Easy to do now its darker outside and ruminates on what had happened to him that day. He had a decision to make and he didn’t know which was the best call.

Having been confronted like that by someone he clearly remembers shooting was jarring for him. Sure he had seen him at Stark’s funeral, and he had even shaken the guys’ hand, but seeing him in all of his glory – long black leather coat, eye patch and commanding presence – still made Bucky immediately flash back to the day he had lain across the road from Steve’s apartment and shot him from the roof.

After his warning shot, and the resulting raised eyebrow from his target, both he and San had been told to follow him into the apparently empty container. Fury had walked over to a rivet in the wall of the metal, pressed his finger against it and the floor began to tremble as the biometrics opened up a large hole in the floor, presenting concrete and metal stairs descending into the bowels of the earth. Glancing back at the two of them he smirked;

“Well are you coming? I’m not waiting around all day for the likes of you,” and the he walks down into the darkness.

Bucky and Sam had stood there, staring at each other. Dumbstruck. They didn’t have the same telepathy thing that Bucky and Steve had had, but it didn’t take a genius to know what each of them were thinking.

Sam had made the final decision for the two of them. He sighed and marched forward, trying to make himself seem worthy of the shield that he had been gifted, even if he didn’t all the way believe it yet. Immediately, Bucky dropped back to watch his six, knowing that that was where he would be able to do the most damage and also protect Sam if it came to it. He hasn’t stowed his gun, he was going to be on alert for any dangers that came his way. He wasn’t the Soldier anymore, but he was gonna damn well stay prepared.

The loud clanging of their steps made it almost impossible to stealthily follow, even if Fury and his team knew they were coming. The ability to have some semblance of surprise was always welcome for Bucky. He was known to be nothing but a shadow, but the steps as he walked was doing nothing to help with that. Strategically from Fury it was a solid idea. But he was upset he had to deal with it.

The bunker was well lit – bright white fluorescents light up all corners of the sizeable control centre that Fury had managed to create. Sam walked in and Bucky stood at the doorway, taking in every little detail around him. He couldn’t see anything that was a direct threat, but the number of people walking around him, going about their daily tasks, talking into microphones and typing intel into their computers worried the Soldier in side him. There were too many potential threats. He would have to stay alert.

Keeping his eyes looking around him, Bucky steps into the room and immediately heard the click of a gun – a Beretta PX4 Storm, his brain helpfully supplied for him. He freezes where he stands as he feels the barrel scrape the side of his temple.

“Drop the weapon, Soldier,” the female voice comes from his left side.

Bucky slides his eyes to the left to see who was standing there. A smartly dressed, brown haired woman was standing there in a perfect shooting stance. The look on her face indicated she was not up for playing. Hill, Bucky remembers. He doesn’t want to huff a laugh, but being on his left side was the most tactically inept thing for her to do. But he wasn’t going to fight her. As far as he knew these people were still whatsisname’s allies, so he wasn’t going to start anything.

He looks Hill directly in the eye and then looks over at his gun, indicating that he was about to move it. Before he does anything, he waits for the slight nod of Hill’s head to give him the all clear and puts his right arm out to the side, the gun hanging from the trigger guard.

Another woman, blond this time walked up towards him carefully, not taking her eyes off of his left arm the entire time. At least this realised what Hill’s mistake had been. She grabs the gun from him and walks away. He looks at her again and can feel his face morph into one of confusion. He knew her. He didn’t know why.

His brain was a nightmare sometimes.

“You gave that up pretty quickly, Sergeant Barnes,” Fury says to him as the mood of the room shifts entirely and people start to relax.

Bucky shrugs back at him. They didn’t need to know he had at least five knives and a micro shooter hidden around his person. That and his arm has and always will be his best weapon. Especially since Shuri had given him an upgrade. He flexes his black fingers and the plates silently whir at the action.

They had then all been directed through to the conference room that was built to the side of the main hall. Surrounded in glass, they were able to see everything that was happening around them. The blond and Hill joined them, and they all sat down around the large round varnished table, Sam and Bucky on one side and the rest of them opposite.

That was when Fury had told them why they were there.

“We need your help,” he had started. Bucky wanted to say ‘duh’ but he decided to keep his reply to a simple eye brow raise of his own. Sam had stayed silent. It had been the quietest he had ever seen him.

When neither of them replied, Fury ploughed on with the problem.

“We have monitored a lot of traffic coming out of Eastern Europe over the past few months. Compared to what was coming out prior to our…return…it is almost one thousand per cent more than what there had been,” Fury says. His voice stumbling uncharacteristically when talking about their time ‘away’.

“What kind of traffic?” Sam finally asks, after Fury has thrown some print outs onto the table. He pulls the papers towards him and starts looking them over. “Jesus,” he says and whistles low.

Intrigued, Bucky reaches out to get the page that Sam had just thrown back down.

On it seemed to be blueprints for something big. The tech specs were too intricate for him to fully understand, but the universal sign for nuclear power was clear to see all over the notes on them. He pulled another one forward and it appeared to be another sketch of a similar thing, only this one appeared to be capable of flight. There were numbers jotted down next to it indicating the approximate number of miles that the ship could fly.

But that wasn’t what had gotten Bucky’s attention. It was the small sigil in the bottom right hand corner of the page. A small circle with a skull inside it, with serpents coming out of it.

“HYDRA,” Bucky says. Not a question, but just stating what it was he was looking at.

He could feel Sam looking over to him and he just knew that a soft worried expression was adorning his features. He ignores him and looks straight art Fury.

“You think that the increase in traffic means they’ve moved there since they came back?” Bucky asks, almost crushing the sketch in his hands.

“Or were there all along, but the increase has just made it more obvious,” Fury replies, nonplussed, and he reaches over and tugs the paper from him.

“I thought we got rid of HYDRA,” Sam says, confused and looking at more of the printouts.

Bucky does laugh then. Mirthlessly, and looks over at him. “You can’t be that naïve can you Wilson?”

Sam looks a little sheepish when he says it and Bucky feels almost bad for his tone.

“So give me the location, I’ll go and burn it to the ground” Bucky says, now very matter of fact and almost like it wasn’t even an option for Fury to say no.

“Hold on, you’re not going anywhere on your own Robocop,” Sam pipes up, and Bucky gives him a filthy look in return.

“Hold up, neither of you are going to ‘ _burn it down_ ’” Fury interrupts before Bucky can argue back. Bucky looks back at him now, confusion written all over his handsome face. “If you had let me finish, you’ll see why,” he continues and then mutters something under his breath. To Bucky it sounded almost like _‘why do I have two of them now’._

“The traffic bounced off about 10 different satellites before it got to where it needed to go,” Hill buts in, obviously in her element of giving information in a briefing. Bucky had to admit, the no nonsense air about her did actually calm them all down. “But it wasn’t enough for our hackers to follow,” she sounded almost proud of her colleagues. “We traced it back to a small district in the countryside of Lithuania of all places,” she finishes, and a holographic map appeared in front of them on the table, highlighting a satellite picture of the location.

It seemed to be a large manor house in the midst of acres of lush grass, woods and fields. Bucky looks up at them. “Looks a bit conspicuous, even for HYDRA,” he tells them. “The higher ups always had these mansions, but the intel was never kept there,” he adds, standing to get a better view of it.

“Well this is why I need you,” Fury says, looking at Bucky directly. “Well both of you, but Sergeant Barnes mainly,” he adds as Sam opens his mouth to say something.

The silence in the room in palpable as Bucky continues to look at the hologram before sighing and looking up into the chocolate brown eye focussed on him.

“It’s a school,” Bucky says finally. He had taken in all of the information on the screen. Pictures of teenagers running around the grounds could be seen if you looked closely enough. Horses being ridden in groups and what looked to be a game of soccer was happening elsewhere. Bucky swipes down his face before chewing at the inside of his cheek and his lower lip. “They’ve infiltrated the kids again,” he says finally, and flashes of the Red Room come to the forefront of his mind. He shoves the heels of his hands into his eyes to get the pictures away.

“We don’t think it’s the same kind of thing as that,” Hill says, her voice softer now. “But, we also don’t know exactly what is happening there,” she continues.

“So what do you want us to do,” Sam interrupts again, clearly trying to give Bucky some time to calm down.

“Well, it’s an international school where a lot of higher ups send their kids – celebrities, diplomats, the upper class of the country and visitors too,” Fury tells them.

“Makes sense,” Bucky says quietly. “What better way to infiltrate today’s society?”

“Well, we want you to go in and teach, look around and try and get more information for us,” Fury says.

Bucky’s mouth drops wide open and he looks directly at him. “Me? I’m sorry, me?! The man they held prisoner and tortured for seventy years? The man who everyone in HYDRA will recognise?”

“Fury, with all due respect man, but even I don’t think that’s a good idea, and I followed Steve Rodgers on a suicide mission,” Sam speaks up in his defence.

“That’s why it’s got to be you,” Fury continues. “You’ve not been seen since the Accords. Your hearing was held in private and no one knew what happened. For all HYDRA know you are long gone, killed before the snap. We cut your hair, cover the arm and no one will know it’s you. You are just someone who looks very like Sergeant James Barnes, Killed in Action at the battle for Earth.”

“What about me?” Sam asks, almost incredulous.

“Well, you will be back up,” Fury says. “We can’t get rid of the fact that you are now very publicly Captain America. But you are the best person we have to back up our man here.”

“I’m no one’s man,” Bucky says. His voice now hard. Almost reminiscent of the Soldier he was. His eyes had gone back to the hologram; to all the children there who could have their lives taken from them without anyone batting an eyelid.

“And I’ll be in there with you Sergeant Barnes,” came the until now quiet voice from the corner of the room.

“Hang on, aren’t you CIA?” Sam asks, a bit of a bite to his question.

“Used to be. I work here now,” she replies directly to him and then looks at Bucky again. “I’ll be your direct backup in there,” she says kindly.

He looks up at her and directly in her eyes. The brown eyes looking directly at him. Her hair hung around her shoulders, straight like it was when he had seen her before. Not when she had taken his gun. But when he had sat in the back of a Beetle in the depths of Europe watching her kiss his best friend.

“I’ll have to think about it. But I don’t want her there,” he says. He gives her one last look and walks from the glass cage.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry. I haven’t left, but real life got in the way 😔 I can only apologise and punish myself accordingly.
> 
> Thank you for clicking on this and reading with me. I apologise for period typical homophobic slurs in this one 
> 
> Apologies for any mistakes. This was written and posted on my iPhone and has not been beta’d 
> 
> Comments and kudos are like my life energy so please let me know what you think.
> 
> Thanks again ❤️

**_Somewhere in Austria, 1943_ **

Bucky threw himself down onto the sodden mud, his legs dangling over the side of the large rock he had found to perch on. He looks out onto the dreary landscape - a copse of trees that could hold so many hidden Nazis on one side of the horizon; a small blood soaked town on the other - surely empty now after the Germans had stormed through taking anything of use. His hand twitches, absentmindedly looking for his trusty Winchester 70, just in case they did encounter anyone.

They had assured him this area was clear of any enemies, but how often had he heard that in his time in the 107th? He chuckles mirthlessly to himself at the thought and then scrubs his hand down his face, the dirt and ash from the explosion surely being smudged in to his features further. 

He shoves the cigarette he had been awarded from one of the other prisoners in his mouth and lights the stolen matches to the end of the stick and inhales deeply. It was something, he thought. At least he got something as a reward for surviving on that table.

He could still feel each of the needles they had embedded into his arms, legs, chest...

A full body shiver and he makes himself stop thinking about what had happened. He wasn’t even sure himself what they had done to him when he was in that room. He was there for days, it could have been weeks, or maybe it was just hours. He didn’t know. He couldn’t even remember what the little german was saying to him when he was in there. The only thing he did remember as clear as day was when a tall, dark haired figure had stalked dangerously over to him. The man had leant down and stared him in the eyes, power radiating off of him as he had smiled a toothy grin at him, almost like a predator seeing his prey for the first time.

_“You might not survive this, but if you do you will be the greatest creation I can bestow upon the world...”_

His heavily accented English had scared him. He didn’t show it, all he can remember doing is replying with his name and number. But then the needles had been inserted. And then he couldn’t remember anything but pain. 

And then he had been saved. By the scrawny punk he had grown up with. Well, clearly he hadn’t grown up until Bucky had left. And wasn’t that something to take in? 

_“I thought you were smaller...”_

And it still hadn’t been fully explained to him. 

Almost as if he had been summoned just because Bucky had thought about him, he felt the familiar feeling of having his best friend at his side. He inhales deeply from the cigarette and then blows the smoke out over the horizon. 

“I still don’t think those things are any good for ya.”

It was an old argument. One he would normally have responded to in the normal “Aw c’mon Stevie, if the docs are giving them out they can’t be that bad,” but Bucky wasn’t in a joking mood.

“Buck...” Steve says when he realises Bucky isn’t even going to look at him. 

“Ya couldn’t just leave it alone could ya?” He stubs the butt of the cigarette onto the rock and flicks it into the mud. He still doesn’t turn around. 

“Can’t you even look at me now Buck?”

The plaintive question comes as a shock. But he turns and looks at the six foot man with muscles in places Bucky didn’t even know existed, looking at him with those same puppy dog eyes that he could never ignore. 

“This isn’t where you should be, Rogers,” is what Bucky finally decides on saying. He can see the flash of hurt in Steve’s eyes as he uses his last name instead of any nicknames they had for each other. 

“You ever seen me walk away from a fight?”

“That’s not the fucking point Steve!” Bucky yells, jumping off the rock and stomping up to his best friend’s face. 

The shouting gets acknowledged by the crowds of soldiers around them and suddenly Bucky is very aware that he is trying to have what could be a personal conversation (argument) in front of a lot of bone tired, scared, bored and frankly nosey men. 

Not wanting to have everyone hear what he had to say, he grabs Steve’s arm - and wow wasn’t that a total difference compared to the last time he had done that - and dragged him to a small area of about five trees that were close to the camp. 

“You...I can’t even...what the fuck did you _DO_?” he hisses at his best friend as he shoves him against a sturdy oak tree, and then runs his hands through his own hair in annoyance.

He watches Steve bite his lip as his inherent insecurities start to take over in the face of Bucky shouting at him. Bucky being angry at Steve. It didn’t happen often. In fact, Bucky can count on one hand how many time he and Steve have had a proper row and this one might come close to the legendary fight of ‘32 when fifteen year old Bucky was caught making out with Mary Lou Roberts at the docks.

“Buck, I...I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. I had to do something! So I did the only thing I could do!”

“Why couldn’t you have stayed at home and waited for me?”

“What? And been the dutiful little house wife, waiting for her man to come home? Buck I was never gonna do that! That’s not how we work, pal!”

Bucky winces at the analogy. Taking a big deep breath in and letting it out slowly he tries to calm himself down. He closes his eyes and tries to centre himself. Also, when he didn’t that he could imagine the man in front of him as the beautiful specimen he had fallen in love with. The slender arms, wrists and fingers of an artist. When he closed his eyes he was his Stevie, the man who fit into his side like he belonged there. The man who was quick as a whip, and took no crap from anyone. The one who was the bravest and smartest out of the two of them. The one Bucky had been in love with as long as he knew what love was....

....but when he opens his eyes, a stranger is standing there. A stranger with Steve’s voice and with Steve’s blue eyes, but a stranger nonetheless. 

Steve can obviously see something in his eyes. Probably that uncertainty that has been simmering at the surface of Bucky ever since he laid eyes on him in that warehouse.

_“I thought you were smaller...”_

“What happened, Steve,” is what he says, his hands grasping into fists at his sides. “Are you even still Steve?”

“Jesus, Bucky, of course I’m still Steve!” The blonde replies loudly. Clearly angry that Bucky would even dare to question it. “I...I met a man. When I went to sign up. He took a chance on me. I don’t know the science, but he gave me something and I’m cured! I’m stronger, now Buck. I can look after myself now. I can actually make a difference!”

“But, what about my Stevie?” Bucky’s voice is small, timid, almost as if he didn’t want to say it but he knew he had to. 

“What do you mean?” Steve finally answers him after a moment of silence.

“If you’re ‘cured’ now, you won’t need me to look after you, will ya? You won’t need me to back ya up when you start fights with the punks in the street, and you won’t...”

He leaves the thought unfinished. But as his eyes lift from the ground and steel blue orbs meet with deep blue ones, both men knew what the ending was meant to be. 

Now Steve was ‘normal’ - better than normal - it would look weird for Bucky to be with him all the time. It would be suspicious them living together in that one room walk up, only sharing a bed because Steve needed the extra warmth in the winter. It wouldn’t be right for them to spend all their time together, even when they were on “double dates” that Bucky had found for them. It definitely wouldn’t be proper for a man as conventionally attractive as Steve now was, not to have a different woman hanging off of his arm every night, and to eventually end up married to a beautiful broad and have a house full of kids. It wouldn’t be right for ‘Uncle Bucky’ to be there every night, and to take Steve away from his woman to spend extra time together. 

But Bucky had always found him amazing. He loved the tenacious energy that he always had - his small frame only making his aggression seem more over the top than it actually was. No one would ever see that rocket spitfire coming when they insulted him or anyone in Steve’s vicinity. He was tender and loving. In a way that he only let Bucky see. He drew like Picasso, but was so humble he thought he was crummy. He was passionate about everything, and had an opinion about even more. 

Steve has been Bucky’s whole world since he was thirteen and has been the person who completed him since he was twenty one. And now all Bucky can see is him leaving the happy little life they had scrambled together.

More silence. That’s it, Bucky thinks, there’s nothing else left to say. Biting his lip and nodding his head in defeat, he folds his arms, almost wrapping them around himself for protection, and starts to turn away.

Suddenly a large hand grips his bicep and Bucky gasps in surprise as he is hauled back against the nearest tree, shielded still so no one could see them. 

“Steve, what...?” But his query is silenced by a second, just as strong hand to his mouth, stopping him from talking any more. 

“You’re such a jerk, do ya know that?” Is all Steve says and then Bucky feels as his lips are consumed by the man in front of him.

Like all of their kisses, it’s like coming home for Bucky. He had missed this so much. The plumpness of Steve’s bottom lip; the warmth of his breath; the way Steve kissed was exactly the same as Steve lived - with passion, intensity and almost a belief that this might be the last kiss he ever has. 

Bucky moans lightly, still fully aware there was a large group of soldiers very close by that would not want to see two queers macking on each other, but he can’t force himself to stop either. He has dreamt about the day that he could do this again and was enjoying it far too much to end it himself. He opens his lips slightly and Steve takes the invitation and slips his tongue inside, Bucky lightly sucks on it the way he knows Steve has always loved and even though the blonde is now slightly taller than him and clearly stronger, Bucky lets him lead the way he always has done and doesn’t fight him. 

Almost too soon for Bucky’s liking, Steve pulls away, breathless, eyes wide and his lips glistening with the shared enjoyment they had just had. Bucky closes his eyes again as Steve leans their foreheads together.

“You happy now? Nothin’s gonna change. You’ll always be mine, Buck. And I’ll always be yours.” Steve leans forward and pecks Bucky on the lips again. He pulls back before Bucky can deepen it again.

“Til the end of the line, jerk,” he chuckles. 

“Til the end of the line, punk.” 


	5. Chapter 5

He walked along the side walk, the morning light starting to shine as he held the cardboard cup in his flesh hand to warm it up. His other hand was out of sight in a well worn leather glove. 

He walked the perimeter of what he considered was his ‘territory’. After being interrupted from his usual routine for that meeting the day before, he had decided to double down and make sure that nothing had changed that was too suspicious. Internally he cursed at Fury for making him miss a day. Routine was what he needed. Coming back from the dead years in the future didn’t bother him - it wasn’t the first time that had happened and he was almost certain it wasn’t going to be the last; at least he had his memories this time - but routine, that was something that he treasured more than anything since Steve had left. It was the only thing he could rely on now. 

He winces as he thinks of the man he loved.

And then the hairs on the back of his neck start to prickle as he realises someone is watching him. He doesn’t turn around. He knows exactly who it is and had been reverse tailing them for the past half hour. He was surprised they still hadn’t made their presence known, but he was sure that that was soon going to change. 

He turns the corner and leaning against the red brick of the tailors shop building on the corner of his block, was Captain America himself. 

“What you drinking?” He asks, gesturing to the cup in his hands. 

“Coffee.” Bucky replies bluntly. “How did you find me?”

Sam chuckles and gets into step beside him, Bucky not stopping to chat but continuing to walk. He purposefully walks past his front stoop and back onto his normal patrol circuit. 

“Hey man! I’m Captain America now, I can do anything,” he says with a wide smile, his dimples catching the light as Bucky side eyes him.

“Last I heard, Captain America was a dumbass who ran into fights instead of away from them and had no spy skills whatsoever,” Bucky smiles softly and quickly at the memory before schooling his face again and taking a sip of the warm caffeine. 

“Yeah, I’m not that suicidal,” Sam says quickly and Bucky feels him stiffen as he realises what he said. “Anyway, I got skills! I was with the greatest spy in the world for like, a year,” he brags, puffing out his chest in pride. 

“So Fury told you then?”

“Basically, yeah,” the younger man sighs and puts his hand out to stop Bucky in his tracks. 

They had reached the entrance to the Smithsonian. There was a lot of space around them and unsuspecting people walked by, not caring that two grown men had come to what was essentially an emergency stop in the middle of the sidewalk. 

Fitting, Bucky thought. This is where his whole old life was still being shown - the one where he was happy and settled. He was certain his and Steve’s old bed was in there somewhere. Obviously not listed as that but that hard old slat bed had some very good memories attached to it. 

Bare blossom trees surrounded them. The cool morning sun shining through and onto the two of them, almost like a spotlight. Bucky felt to exposed here. He needed to keep walking. He went to start again. Sam didn’t move his hand, but tightened his grip. 

Bucky scoffed and went to move away again. Captain America or not, Sam Wilson was no super soldier. Bucky could squash him like a bug if he wanted to. It just so happened he liked him. 

And he wasn’t that person anymore.

“Why did you run? Yesterday? I thought you hated HYDRA?”

Bucky stops again and just glared at him. 

“OK man, I get it, I do, but I thought you would jump at the chance to bring them down. And to walk out because of one person? That’s not the man I thought you were.”

Bucky frowns and looks at him again. “You have no idea who I am Sam! You’ve known me all of what? A year? If that? Total! You don’t know anything about me! So don’t go thinking you would know anything about how I would act!”

He pulls his arm free and stomps off back in the direction of his building. He doesn’t care if Sam sees where he’s going. He’s not looking where he’s going and walks directly into a slightly built red headed women, and the impact sends he almost hurtling to the ground.

“Oh my god,” he exclaims and crouches down to the woman to help her pick herself and the large brown bag of groceries she had been holding off of the concrete. “I’m so sorry ma’am, really I’m such a knucklehead, I’m a klutz, I need to watch where I’m going, I really do,” he picks up the orange rolling in front of him and then grabs the pasta and rolls that had landed to the side of him.

“No I’m sorry! It was my bad, I wasn’t looking, but wow you are solid, dude!” The girl looks up at him finally and Bucky noticed the moment she notices how he looks and sees the change in her demeanour immediately. “I mean you must work out _a lot_ ,” she says and reaches out a hand to gently run it down his right arm. 

Giving the girl a tight smile, pushing down all those latent instincts to attack anyone who touched him without permission, he makes his excuses and hands her the rolls and the pasta and quickly walks away. Thankfully his coffee was still in one piece. At least his reflexes hadn’t completely failed him.

“Wow that was something,” comes the familiar voice behind him. Bucky does in fact roll his eyes hard this time and he keeps walking, knowing that Sam was catching him up. “Why didn’t you give her your number? She seemed interested,” he adds. Bucky heard the obvious smile in his voice, but then also the hint of curiosity. 

“Did she? I didn’t notice,” he replies as he jogs up the stairs to the front door of his apartment block and types in his entry code into the keypad that acted as a lock.

He pulls the door open roughly and walks in not caring but knowing that Sam was able to catch it before it shut on him. He walks up to his floor instead of taking the elevator - it’s safer, not confined, can escape - and he gets there well before Sam, not even short of breath.

He manages to catch himself a break from the questions for a moment and he steels himself, his hand clutching the side of his kitchen counter, the knuckles of his flesh hand whitening before he hears the knock at the door he was expecting. 

Stalking over to the door he makes sure the chain is on when he opens it a crack to see Sam standing there, breathing and panting hard. 

“Look terminator, let me in,” he gasps, the edges of his lips tinted blue with the lack of oxygen. 

No words were spoken while the door was unlocked and opened to Sam. Bucky didn’t even have time to think about the fact that this was the first person he had ever let into his apartment, the door was barged open and Sam took a quick look around before he spied the kitchen sink and started drinking directly from the tap.

“Did your ma not teach you any manners?” Bucky scorns as he walks past him and pulls a glass out of the cabinet and hands it to the other man. “And you better start training if you’re gonna be wearing that uniform,” he adds, disbelief colouring his features at the fact that Wilson was out of breath just climbing stairs.

“I...am not...arguing...with...a super soldier robot....” Sam gasps out, irritation on his face. 

Shrugging, Bucky folds his arms and leans back against his counter. He just stares at Sam, gaze not wavering, his piercing grey blue eyes boring into the other man waiting for him to say whatever it was he wanted.

“Carter is gonna be on the team,” he says finally, his pallor slowly coming back and he starts taking normal breaths again. 

“Then I’m not,” is all Bucky responds. 

“This is insane, Barnes. This is something we need your skills for, and the only thing standing in your way of getting one over on them is a girl?”

Bucky shrugs again. He tries to ignore the irritation that runs up his back as they start to talk about that woman. He doesn’t blink. He can only see them kissing when he closes his eyes.

Sam shifts slightly where he was standing under the continuing stare. 

“Look, if this is about Steve going back to Peggy-“

“Wilson. _Stop_ ,” Bucky doesn’t need to hear any half baked ideas from someone who didn’t know the full story. 

“No, listen to me, man,” Sam continues. Bucky glares at him like he was going to kill him in a heartbeat, but for some reason that didn’t stop him either. “I know he was your best friend, and he left you, but we have to move on. Blaming Carter for Steve going back to her aunt is not going to change anything.” 

After a moment of silence, Bucky laughs. Sam just stares at him, not exactly sure what to do, but he keeps laughing. He laughed because it was so ridiculous. 

“Wilson, I’m not pissed with Carter because Steve went back to Peggy.” Bucky clarifies, laughing but with no real humour. 

“Then what is it?” Sam finally demands. 

“I’m pissed with Sharon Carter because every time I look at her I see Steve kissing her,” he says glumly. The laughter finally stopping. 

Sam thinks. Bucky can see it on his face. He was just like Steve that way, he couldn’t keep anything from his face. Sam would make a terrible spy. His forehead furrowed in confusion, and his eyes darted around as of trying to make sense of the new information he had been given. 

“So what? You liked Carter?” 

Bucky sighs loudly in frustration. How could someone as smart as this man not get it? He walks into his living room and sinks into his sofa, putting us elbows on his knees and cradling his head in his hands. 

“So what? If it wasn’t that then what?” Sam had followed him and was perched on the arm of the chair, probably looking as confused as he sounded. 

Rolling his head to the side he looks at Sam. God he was good at this. Bucky actually wanted to tell him. He wanted to tell him his biggest secret. The one thing even HYDRA couldn’t take from him. The one thing he always knew above all else, and that finally broke him from their control. The one thing that only a handful of outcasts in the army even had an inkling about back in the forties. 

_The one thing he had pretended to forget_. 

He sighs. He runs his hands through his hair and pulls it away from his face. He grips onto his head, almost as if he was trying to squeeze the memory out of it. 

“I wasn’t sweet on Carter,” he’s doing this. He’s actually doing this. He can’t quite believe it himself. “Not her or any dame.” He looks over at the other man to see the confusion still there. “It’s always been Steve. I’ve been in love with Steve since we were twelve years old. And I made him think I’d forgotten him. So when I look at Sharon Carter, I look at the woman he ran to when he couldn’t have me.”

Sam sits there, his mouth agape. Bucky could see all the things he thought he knew about their mutual friend morph as he took in that piece of information. 

“Wow. So making me Captain America really wasn’t the first controversial thing he ever did then?” 

Bucky looks at him. Fully this time. He sees a smirk in his eyes and he knew that this man wasn’t going to judge him. He relaxes for possibly the first time since he returned. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. Sorry it's been a while. I have been having major block. I probably said that before but this time the struggle was real! Anyway, I managed to wrap up something else I was working on so I should be able to write this a bit more regularly now. 
> 
> Let me know what you think? I love any comments at all 😊

The noise of the espresso maker was the only thing that made any noise in the silence of the apartment. Bucky was still leaning against the counter top and Sam had moved to the rickety wooden chair that has the unfortunate job of almost holding up the circular pine table that acted as Bucky’s dining table. He didn’t sit at the table often, mainly using it for weapon cleaning and maintenance, but it was useful and that was why he kept it around.

Sam jumped slightly as the table lurched when he pulled the seat out of it and Bucky smirked slightly, earning him a bitch face of epic proportions. He sat down gently as if he was worried it was going to collapse beneath him. Bucky knew he had nothing to worry about. He had almost double the amount of muscle mass as his new ‘friend’ plus an artificial arm and that seat managed with him.

The machine finishes what it was doing, and Bucky takes the two cups and hands one to Sam. He sighs and downs the bitter dark liquid as quickly as possible.

“OK, so you two were together,” he doesn’t ask, he states it as the fact it was. He had surprised Bucky. He had made that quick quip and then just let it sink in. He hadn’t been horrified and he hadn’t been appalled. Bucky knew that the times had changed but he was still a product of his time and he had been worried that the reaction would have been different.

In response to the not-question, he nods along, waiting to see what might come next.

“The only thing that isn’t sticking with me is,” and Sam sips his coffee and contemplates his next words, “is you were meant to be like the biggest ladies man.”

“Was I?” Bucky hides his surprise, and almost anger at someone expecting he wasn’t one hundred per cent monogamous. “Who said that?”

“It’s in that exhibit,” Sam says, waving his hands towards the general direction of the Smithsonian. “One of the videos said that Steve was always making fun of you about it and that’s all you talked about!”

“You know who it was?” Bucky was now intrigued to see who had been speculating about his love life after he was meant to have been dead.

“Er, Dugan, I think,” and Bucky smiles at the name.

All the commando’s knew about him and Steve. They didn’t hide it well when they had all started working together. Admittedly he thinks a lot of them thought it was one of those ‘arrangements’ they had while they were on the front line and needed some relief. It wasn’t unheard of for it to happen – a lot of horny, frustrated men in close quarters would inevitably lead to, let’s say, people lending a ‘helping hand’ as it were. But Dugan, well, he was different. Bucky had gotten juiced-up one night and all of his feelings had come spilling out. They hadn’t meant to, but Steve had gone somewhere to do ‘something’, and he didn’t want to sleep in his tent alone. Dugan had been the only one awake, keeping watch and Bucky had decided to just let it all come out.

He wasn’t like the rest of them. He listened and he had understood everything. After Bucky had waxed poetic about how perfect Steve was for a good two hours, the big guy just slapped him on the back and said: “Man, you got it bad Sarge,” and left it at that.

“Yeah, that tracks,” Bucky finally says, the small smile still at the corners of his lips as he remembers that evening.

“So…. _not_ a huge ladies man then?” Sam asks, and gets a glare in return. “Hey, I’m just asking man,” he puts his hands up in mock surrender. “I just needed to make sure that everything I thought I knew was wrong,” he adds and takes a drink.

Rolling his eyes, Bucky puts his coffee cup in the sink and moves over to the other rickety chair and sits down in it, ignoring the creaking and the scared look on his companion’s face as he does.

“No, there were no dames,” he clasps his hands on the table in front of him and starts to fiddle with his fingers.

Sam keeps his surprise to himself. He had fought next to this man with thousands of aliens charging them down and this is the first sign of nerves he’s ever noticed. He stays silent and sips from his drink as he waits for him to continue – his counselling training from the VA kicking in, knowing that Bucky clearly wanted to talk to someone.

“But it was the thirties, ya know? It’s not cliché when I say it wasn’t the same,” he sighs, rolls his head back and shuts his eyes as if he was actually back in time. If he tried hard enough he could hear the old radio playing from the next room and the smell of salt beef and potatoes coming from down the hall. “We had to hide it. When we went out, I mean. Before the draft, I would go down the docks to earn a dime and Steve would go out and try and sell his comics…but when we were home and in our apartment? We were us, ya know? Just the two of us.” He smiles at the memory, clear as day in his mind’s eye.

“How did you hide?” Sam asks, genuinely interested. Steve had never been interested in speaking about before the war. Now it was obvious why. 

“I dunno. I would go and get groceries and see some blonde haired, blue eyed dame and her friend and would ask straight out if they wanted an evening out.” He huffs a laugh. “I had absolutely _no_ interest in women at all, and have never since, but for some reason it was real easy to get them to say yes. Steve hated it, for a coupl’a reasons. He hated bullies. Always did – I s’pose that’s not really news huh?” he laughs again at the memory of a tiny ten year old Steve taking on the neighbourhood bully and losing every time until Bucky would come and pick him up and take him home. Sam shakes his head no. That Steve hated bullies was news to absolutely no one. “So he always wanted to show he wasn’t ashamed of us. He wanted us to be able to be ourselves. But that wasn’t gonna happen. Not after we heard about a guy a few blocks over who had his head kicked in and killed because someone just happened to think that he was gay.”

Sam inhales sharply. He knew exactly how that was. Alright it wasn’t exactly the same, but he was no stranger to having to always be on the lookout for someone who didn’t like the way he looked.

“Another reason was he was a jealous punk who didn’t like the girls bein near me. Not that I liked them bein near him either, but he didn’t hide it very well. Lastly, he was bi. I think he was always scared that I…I dunno. Might think I was as well? Anyway, that’s how it was before the war. Then when he got…bigger…and he started bein in all the newsreels and shit, well people started speculating ya know? So, I guess Peggy was there. He was attracted to her, definitely. I could tell, he can’t hide anything from his stupid face. So he played it up for everyone else.”

“That must have been hard for you,” Sam says, his eyes soft and caring as Bucky looks up at him. He had almost forgotten he was sitting opposite him.

“It wasn’t easy,” Bucky shakes his head. “But it was gonna happen,” he admits dejectedly. “It couldn’t last, what we had. I think I knew that when I saw him on the front. But we were in that little bubble of war. Didn’t know if we were gonna be alive the next day so we just lived for the moment.” He laughs mirthlessly. “Turns out I didn’t. But he could’ve. If he wasn’t such a punk he could’ve had that family.”

There was more silence. Neither man said a word to break it. Sam honestly didn’t know what he would have said even if he wanted to.

“Instead, he gets me to remember everything and then fucks off back there as soon as he could.” The chair scrapes against the floor as he gets up quickly and storms to the living area. Sam hears him as he throws himself onto the sofa. Deciding he better not leave the ex-assassin alone he follows at a distance.

“You said him leaving was your fault though?” Sam says as he leans against the doorway.

He gets a steely glare in response to the question and Sam knows he doesn’t want to be on the receiving end of that too often in his life.

“Yeah? Trust you to remember that part,” Bucky replies and grabs a throw cushion and hugs it to his chest.

And just like that, Sam notices the man in front of him goes from scary, homicidal, brainwashed assassin to petulant, moody and grumpy. Sam wants to laugh, but can see a glimpse of the man that Steve spent so many years trying to save. Bucky sighs melodramatically.

“Fine. When he found me in Romania, I really didn’t remember everything. I knew who he was. I…remembered things about…home. His ma, my ma, my sisters. Nothing about us. But after the fight with T’Challa, I musta been hit on the head too many times but something shook loose. I looked at him and just knew. And I said nothin.”

“Well, to be fair we did have a lot of stuff going on at the time,” Sam tells him, a small smile on his face.

“Well when he kissed that…Sharon? I knew who he was then. He looked at me after to see if I would do anythin. I woulda been so pissed if he had done that to Peggy when I was there. But I just…ignored it. I was so messed up and he didn’t need that. And when I stayed in Wakanda, I knew it broke him. And I still said nothin. He needed to go and live his life and be happy. I don’t know whether I planned to tell him after, but then I had to learn to live again, and then Thanos.” Bucky looks at his hands in his lap. “I am literally the living embodiment of putting things off til later,” he chuckles. But there is no humour there.

Sam moves over to the sofa and sits down next to him. Bucky looks at him, side eying him, clearly suspicious of what he was going to do. He did not expect the hard clap on his back, hard enough to nudge him forward slightly. Sam raises an eyebrow at the movement.

“Don’t get too cocky, I was surprised, you’re not that strong,” Bucky quips.

“It sucks man. You and Steve it sucks. And he’s gone and that was a sucky thing for him to do. But you did a sucky thing too. So basically I’m saying this is a suck fest.”

”I can see why you were so in demand in the VA,” he says, straight faced. “That was eloquent, _so_ eloquent.”

“Yeah, I know. Can you wait for the speeches I’m gonna be doin?” Sam winks at him and Bucky shakes his head and smiles. “Look. I am so grateful you told me all of this. I am,” he reiterates as Bucky scoffs. “But man, you are the one person who knows Hydra the best. You’ve got knowledge, skills, and you’ve got your mind back and the one thing I do know _wasn’t_ a lie is that you helped with one of the best tactical masterminds in the war and that means you have brains. Whatever Fury wants us to do I know _I_ would be happier with you there.”

Bucky contemplates his words. Hydra was a thorn in his side, and he wanted to take down any of them that were left. And in a school? He didn’t want to have another Red Room on his conscious.

“Is it just the three of us? Cos I don’t think I could be that polite for that long.”

“You can be polite?” Sam jokes and gets a smack in his arm for the trouble. “I think there’s some sniper from Brooklyn that Fury mentioned too. I dunno, you want to go and find out?”

Bucky chews at his upper lip, then at his lower lip clearly considering his options. Finally he stands up and throws his pillow behind him.

“Fine. Lead the way Captain, my Captain.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Gentlemen this is a surprise,” a deep voice rings out. Bucky had sat himself in one of the uncomfortable but stylish metal chairs that were available in the conference room, facing the door he had entered. However, the voice had come from behind him, meaning he had completely overlooked the hidden door that mush have led into Fury’s office.

He doesn’t visibly react to the surprise, not wanting to give the spy the satisfaction of getting another one over him, but deep inside Bucky is chiding himself for missing something so simple. He waits for Fury to sit down in the grander chair at the head of the large glass table. Bucky sits back, and crosses his legs as he angles his own chair to face Nick. For all intents and purposes it is a relaxed pose, one to portray him letting his defences down. It was a tactic to get more information out of his victim, but in fact he was a curled spring ready to attack if the need arose. His right hand poised strategically over his boot as he crossed his legs, ready to get the hidden knife out if needed. His left hand empty, ready to strike.

Nick raises an eyebrow at him as he moves, clearly suspecting that Bucky wasn’t as relaxed as his posture suggested. “Thank you for coming back Sergeant,” he says, looking at him without even blinking his one good eye.

“Well, I don’t think I had a choice,” he replies, not even hinting at the bonding session him and Sam had had that morning. He wasn’t even really ready to admit it to himself that he had actually had this himself.

He can feel the bitch face being thrown at him from his new ‘friend’.

“Am I to assume that this means you are willing to take part in this then?” Fury asks him.

“Well you know what people say about assuming,” Sam mutters from next to Bucky and he smirks quickly before schooling his features.

If Fury heard him he didn’t show it. Fury just looked intently at Bucky, waiting for his reply.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I’m in. But I get the ability to veto anything that I don’t agree with.”

“I will take any recommendations under advisement. That’s all I can offer you,” Fury tells him plainly. Bucky takes a moment and nods at the compromise.

“Anyone else joining us?” Sam asks, looking around at the empty room, only the three men in there. Not even Hill was there and as she was Fury’s right hand man that was a strange occurrence.

“Everyone else knows the plan,” Fury tells him. “All we were waiting for was Sergeant Barnes to agree to join us.”

“Are you saying that if I didn’t agree this whole plan would be off?” Bucky asks, slight scepticism creeping into his voice.

“No,” Fury says, his tone indicating he was not going to give any more information to him. Bucky lets his left arm rest onto the table, his metal fingers tapping a small tattoo on to the glass in front of him.

“Alright, well, now that that’s been explained,” Sam interrupts the staring contest between the two spies. “Are you going to fill us in on everything that’s gonna be going on?”

“I still need to know who is going to be involved,” Bucky says, his fingers continuing to tap away, almost in Morse Code.

“Is it going to be a deal breaker again?” Nick asks him, his eyebrow raised slightly, insinuating that he wasn’t a fan of how Bucky had reacted last time he had seen him.

“No, but if I’m going in somewhere where there is a real chance of me getting my memories wiped, going insane and killing you all, I should really know who is meant to have my back,” he doesn’t even try and hide the sarcasm and Sam stifles his own laugh.

“Well, shall I explain the whole plan or do you want to continue trading barbs until you have to fly out?”

“Go ahead, Nick, please,” Sam interrupts again and tries to stop the dick measuring contest clearly happening between Buck and Fury.

Fury narrows his eye at Sam, and presses a not so hidden button underneath his setting at the table. A few seconds pass and Hill appears, bringing a Stark-Pad in with her and sets it up on a docking station that had miraculously appeared when she moved the tablet close to the table. The schematics of the school that Bucky had seen at the last meeting were beamed in front of them for Sam and Bucky to look at more closely. Along with the plans of the building came type written pages, which seemed to have a number of jobs written on them, qualifications and previous school addresses and then what looked like a standard housing lease written in Lithuanian. Finally, Bucky could see the last page of writing which was headed up with the words _“Darbo Sutartis”_ in bold letters.

“Employment contract?” Bucky asks, his brain helpfully supplying the translation for him as it flashed up. “Who’s being employed?”

“Like we told you at the last meeting Sergeant Barnes, you are,” Hill tells him matter of factly, still standing stiffly next to her boss, her hands behind her back.

Bucky narrows his eyes and his fingers stop drumming on the table. The sudden silence seems to jar Nick, who was immediately on guard, Bucky noticing his right hand moving towards his jacket where Bucky was sure a gun was secreted away from view.

“I thought you were being stupid,” Bucky says plainly. “You were being serious?!”

“I’m always serious, Sergeant,” Fury says, completely straight faced.

Bucky suddenly felt the chill run down his spine as he realised that he was actually going to be going into this building and facing the very people he had been trying to escape for years. In fact the last time he faced any HYDRA agents he left the building burning to the ground with all the bodies inside. He had never actively tried to infiltrate them outright before. His way was a lot more hit, slash, shoot, kill instead of the spying way Fury seemed to be favouriting at this moment.

Bucky clears his throat. He looks round at Sam who is clearly trying to make sure that he isn’t being triggered and then back at the people who wanted to send him back into the lion’s den.

“Alright. Lay it on me then, what’s the plan?”

Everyone in the room seemed to exhale at the same time at his words. Bucky uncrosses his legs and leans forward to look at the plans in more detail. He notices again the areas which seem to indicate radioactivity and obvious immediate areas of concern for people who hadn’t seen inside the building.

“We have organised for you to start working for Cerberus-HYDRA as a teacher,” Hill explains. “You will go in, infiltrate the student body and the teaching staff and figure out a way to get them to trust you enough to tell you exactly what is going on under the building,” she continues as if it was the easiest thing in the world for him to do.

“And the fact that he looks exactly like the Asset they lost after a massive battle and legal trial?” Sam asks enquiringly.

“As I said before, your hair is shorter now, we organise something to camouflage your arm and you will have to use your own skills to blend in,” Fury says to him. “I mean, you’re the most personable and adaptable person _I’ve_ ever met so I’m sure it will be easy,” he adds sardonically.

Sam inhales, clearly expecting a fight between the two of them to erupt.

“Son, you’ll be fine, I know you’ll be able to persuade them of your alias,” he adds, leaning back in the high backed chair he is using like a throne.

“Call me ‘son’ one more time and I’ll show you how personable my fist can be,” Bucky mutters as he continues to look over the plans and speed read the contract they have negotiated for his new place of employment. “Cerberus-HYDRA? What’s with the name?”

“We aren’t too sure,” Hill jumps in before the conversation could get more heated. “We know that HYDRA is, well obviously, HYDRA, but Cerberus? We don’t know where this came from. That’s one of the things that we need you to look into.”

“And am I going to be in there completely on my own? What’s my dear Captain here going to be doing while I’m being tortured and killed at the mercy of some wanna be teachers and brain washed kids?”

“Well, Wilson is too well known and will have other things to take care of while the mission is going on-“

“What else is new,” Bucky cuts in and immediately shuts up when the other three people in the room all give him the same look.

“So he will be on surveillance during the day and then help you with recon when you aren’t working. However you will have another agent on the inside with you when you are in there,” Fury explains.

“Agent Carter will be there as a fellow teacher to provide back up when it is needed and to make sure that you don’t have anyone tailing you or becoming suspicious. She has already headed out there and has taken up her new position,” Hill clarifies as Bucky groans at the name. Hill looks at him but says nothing, and Sam nudges him in the side with his elbow.

“You will also have sniper support in the form of another agent we work with regularly.”

“And I’ll meet him when exactly?”

“Before you ship out, I’m sure you’ll get on famously. He’s just as easy going as you are,” Fury says and smirks as he stands. “Take these blueprints, contracts and all the information we have on this school and the history there and read up.”

“We need you to know it all before you go and your flight is in three days. Get all your affairs in order before you go. Your itinerary is in there; you’ll be flying out commercially from Newark, so you don’t have much time,” Hill continues as she hands the tablet over to the man who was still staring daggers at them both.

“I trust you can organise someone to look at your arm?” Fury says as he disappears through the door he entered, not forty five minutes earlier.

“Hey! Wait, what kinda teacher am I s’posed to be?” he calls out, getting no reply from the man as his leather coat waves out behind him.

“History,” Hill smiles as she goes to leave the room too.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he shouts in response.

“At least you know what you’re gonna be talking about,” Sam says in his ear and Bucky whirls round to give him a glare. Sam flinches, clearly expecting him to take a shot at hitting him. The action makes Bucky feel something deep down. Almost shame that Sam would think he would do something like that.

Bucky relaxes his own stance and just claps Sam on the shoulder. He sees the look of shock as he does it. He needs to remember this man is not the enemy. This man has been with him through everything that happened since he got back. He needs to start giving him some more credit for his presence in his life.

Pulling his Stark-phone out of his pocket he hits the familiar icon on the screen and the phone starts to dial.

“Let’s go,” he calls out to Sam as he walks out of the mainly glass room they had been sitting in. He puts the phone to his ear as he waits for the line to be answered.

“Who are you calling? How do you even have a signal down here?” Sam asks, clearly confused as he pulls out his own cell and looks at the lack of bars available to him.

Bucky smirks as he continues to walk up the metal stairs, the handset at his ear and listening to the familiar tone. He knows that he could be buried twelve foot deep in the desert and he would still be able to ring this number.

As they walk out of the shipping container and into the fresh air the line clicks and he knows the call has been answered.

“Hey, it’s me. I need your help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys 😊
> 
> I'm a bit worried about this one so if you could let me know how you found it that would be awesome 😊
> 
> If you want to have any updates i'm basnatural on tumblr, come and find me 🙂


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